Just yesterday I was able to tell you that Philips Hue will launch its own smart home camera. This was leaked by Eric Rondolat, the CEO of the manufacturer Signify, during the announcement of the quarterly figures. However, as I know by now, Philips Hue’s new security system will not consist of just one camera.
Last November, Philips Hue surprised us at the last minute with the Festavia string lights. Just before Christmas, the small colourful LEDs for the Christmas tree went on sale – and were completely sold out within a few days. This status has not changed so far. However, there is a surprising announcement from Switzerland: There, the Festavia is currently available again in the official online shop of Philips Hue and is even sold with a discount of 10 percent for the first time.
A glance at the calendar reveals that the time until Christmas is now shorter than the time since Christmas. In less than half a year, we’ll be putting up Christmas trees in our living rooms again. And of course, the right lighting can’t be missing. Last November, Philips Hue launched its smart Festavia string lights at the very last minute.
Christmas is over and by now almost all Christmas trees have disappeared from our living rooms. We also took everything down a week ago – and first of all, the Festavia light chain disappeared back into the box. My second Philips Hue Festavia is still hanging outside on the tree and has survived two months in the wild without any damage, although officially no outdoor use is intended.
Only a few days after the major update to version 4.14, developer Stefan Göhler delivers the next update for his app iConnectHue. Version 4.15 is released shortly before Christmas, and not without reason: It contains animations for the new Philips Hue Festavia. The string light is probably already hanging on the Christmas tree of one or the other of you.
If you were flirting with buying the new Philips Hue Festavia before Christmas, there’s bad news for you: Nothing left. Apart from one small country surrounded by big mountains, the string lights are currently out of stock. In Switzerland, there is still a remaining contingent available. According to my information, it is almost impossible that there will be a possibility to order the Festavia light chain via the Philips Hue Shop before Christmas.
You have to hand it to Philips Hue: After they have made a mess of one or the other product launch in the past and the availability in the in-house online shop was often very poor, it worked out wonderfully with the Festavia string light despite the tight schedule. On 11 November, which was a Friday, it was possible to order the string light in the Philips Hue online shop, and the first orders were already delivered on the following Monday.
In version 4.31 of the Philips Hue App there is a new mode for the Hue Festavia string light. This allows you to display not only three but five colours as a gradient in gradient mode. In addition to the normal gradient mode, which is also available for other products such as the Philips Hue Gradient Signe, the Festavia already mastered the new and previously exclusive “Diffuse” mode “out of the box”.
I actually haven’t written about the new Philips Hue Festavia string light for two weeks, so let’s change that today. I couldn’t bring myself to do an ultimate test yet, also because I don’t know yet how exactly to evaluate the product. But I can already answer one question: I like the fairy lights very much.
At the weekend, I wanted to find out for you how much electricity the new Philips Hue Festavia string light consumes. The result really surprised me, especially with regard to other Hue light sources. But first things first. With Philips Hue lights, it has always been the case that colours have consumed significantly less energy than, for example, bright and cool white tones.
Fabian